The present invention relates to a machine for making up bundles of sheets, in particular banknotes.
The invention is applicable advantageously to machines by which banknotes are ordered into stacks and arranged thereafter in bundles or stacks of bundles, and indeed reference will be made herein specifically to this type of application albeit no limitation in general scope is implied.
Machines of the type in question appear typically as a plurality of stacking modules equipped with respective formation channels and are designed to run an initial check on the banknotes for bundling. The modules are filled at their infeed ends with a succession of single notes, which might be of any given type, whereupon the notes are examined within the compass of the selfsame modules generally by optical means, and any defective items eliminated; thereafter, the banknotes are divided up according to denomination and/or type and directed toward respective independent outlets afforded by the formation channels.
In this manner, stacks of single banknotes are caused to form at each of the outlets in question, accumulating to a predetermined number before being taken up and transferred to a set of binders, one serving each module, by which each stack is secured with at least one wrapper or band in such a manner as to make up a relative bundle.
The prior art also embraces machines in which the banknotes caused to accumulate at the outlets of the single formation channels consist not in stacks of discrete notes, but rather in stacks of bundled notes already checked and bound with respective bands.
Albeit eminently effective in terms of their ability to check and stack the banknotes, machines of the type outlined above betray the drawback of being somewhat complex and costly.
The object of the present invention is to provide a machine for making up bundles from ordered stacks of banknotes, such as will remain free from the drawbacks associated with the prior art as outlined above.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a machine by which ordered stacks either of discrete banknotes or of bundled banknotes can be bound with equal ease.